The Creative Europe project Opera InCanto (OIC) has been presented at the European Parliament in Brussels during the conference Opera as Part of European Cultural Heritage Linking Past and Future on 19 February 2020. This dissemination event highlighted the relevance of the Opera InCanto project and its cultural impact at European level. As Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said during the conference, “Opera can make us see and feel the world differently”: this is the key role of culture in society.
Silvia Costa, Europa InCanto Patron and former Chair of European Parliament Culture Committee, described the key role of cultural diplomacy and Walter Zampieri, Head of Unit Creative Europe – Culture at EACEA, talked about how educational cultural programs have influenced the new Creative Europe programs.
The activity of OIC's project coordinator Europa InCanto have been presented by Nunzia Nigro and Germano Neri as an example of good practice at national level and the theatre school Le Piccole Canaglie based in Brussels described how Europa InCanto's activities have scaled up to the European level thanks to the support of local actors such as the Commune de Woluwe-Saint-Pierre and the Nursery and Primary European School – EEB2.
The conference, which featured also speeches by Stefan Gies from the AEC and Stefania Abbondi from Oper Leipzig, was followed by a flash mob of the children's choir participanting in the project, performing the arias of Turandot by Giacomo Puccini accompanied by the Orchestra of Europa InCanto on the Solidarnosc Esplanade of the European Parliament.
The project will be presented again at the AEC Congress 2020 in Antwerp. Upcoming activities will involve schools in Croatia and Germany, whose children will perform Turandot in local theatres in spring 2021.
